Arizona Man Sentenced to 30 Years’ Imprisonment for the Sexual Exploitation of Children

Arizona Man Sentenced to 30 Years’ Imprisonment for the Sexual Exploitation of Children

U.S. Attorney Kenneth A. Polite announced that VITTORIO FRANCESCO GONZALEZ-CASTILLO,age 27, of Tucson, Arizona, was sentenced yesterday by District of Arizona Chief Judge Raner C. Collins to 30 years’ incarceration for his part in two federal child pornography cases. GONZALEZ’s term of imprisonment will be followed by lifetime supervised release with stringent sex offender conditions and the requirement that he register as a sex offender.

In the first case, which arose in Arizona, GONZALEZ-CASTILLO was charged with distribution, receipt, and possession of child pornography after a 2009 investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed GONZALEZ-CASTILLO’s large-scale trading and distribution of graphic and sadistic child pornography.

In the second case, as a result of a nationwide child exploitation investigation, special agents with the New Orleans Office of the United States Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”), determined that GONZALEZ-CASTILLO was responsible for producing videos depicting the sexual exploitation of children. According to court documents, beginning in 2012, and continuing until January 2013, GONZALEZ-CASTILLO conspired with Jonathan Johnson, the administrator of a multi-national child pornography website, to create and post videos depicting the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet. On January 24, 2014, GONZALEZ-CASTILLO was charged with conspiracy to produce child pornography for his part in producing a series of videos depicting a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct in 2012 and 2013.

GONZALEZ-CASTILLO entered guilty pleas in both cases on November 12, 2014, after the Louisiana matter was transferred to the District of Arizona.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

U.S. Attorney Polite praised the work of the Homeland Security Investigations in Louisiana, Arizona, and California, as well as the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Louisiana, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Tucson, Arizona, Birmingham, Alabama, and Albany, New York in investigating this matter. Assistant U.S. Attorney Carin C. Duryee of the District of Arizona and Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian M. Klebba of the Eastern District of Louisiana were in charge of the prosecution.